


The Woods Are Lovely, Dark, and Deep

by MandyDarlings



Category: The Vampire Diaries (TV)
Genre: Friendship, Gen, post show
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-09
Updated: 2015-04-09
Packaged: 2018-03-22 00:13:24
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,195
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3708209
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MandyDarlings/pseuds/MandyDarlings
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She leaves Mystic Falls with the top down, and her favorite song blasting on the radio. Elena Gilbert thinks that maybe, just maybe this was how her time here was meant to end.  She drives triumphantly over Wickery Bridge. Not today, she smiles to the memory of her parents, there is so much more to see.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Woods Are Lovely, Dark, and Deep

She leaves Mystic Falls with the top down, and her favorite song blasting on the radio. Elena Gilbert thinks that maybe, just maybe this was how her time here was meant to end.  She drives triumphantly over Wickery Bridge. _Not today_ , she smiles to the memory of her parents, _there is so much more to see_.

~~~~

She finds Jeremy in Santa Fe, dirty jeans and a fresh vampire kill. “This doesn’t look like college.”

He turns and gives his sister a boyish smile that reminds her of when she used to catch him when he was five, reaching into things he shouldn’t.  “This doesn’t look like Mystic Falls.”

“There is an entire world out there, figured it was time to see it.”

“What about Da-“

“My life isn’t about _them._ ” The poison drips from her tongue and she applies a well placed tourniquet inside of her.

Elena decides that night to pick up a pen and paper for the first time in what feels like a lifetime. I _t should_ , she thinks, _this is the second one after all._

Together they create stories. She writes and he draws the covers. _The Vampire Diaries_ , she smiles to herself and wraps up her past in paper binding releasing the rage and pain from her heart. It is closest to forgiveness she can allow.

~~~~

Eventually age catches up to little brother, slithering through his bones and wrists, making him slower and more breakable. While Elena remains flawless in youth, her skin a statue unblemished. Any passerby on the street would think them father and daughter. Not hardened vampire hunter and older sister.

Elena tells him to stop fighting; it will only end in an early grave. She offers to turn him, to keep him with her forever, but Jeremy wraps his sister in his arms.

“No, I want to die a human,” he whispers into her hair.

And unlike many years ago she lets him chose his own path.

~~~~

He dies on a cold night in December. Not in the cold claws of a werewolf, or the teeth of a vampire. His heart gives out. It is his genetics. Elena's only comfort is that he listened to her. Hetraded in the stakes for a life,the kill for the warmth of his heart, and the violence for the sound of laughter.

Elena is glad, for once in her unlife, that she does not need breath when she has to bury her baby brother.At least this time there is a place to mourn instead of ashes on the ground, and a headstone that reads _beloved brother, husband, and father_.

As if by magic Caroline and Bonnie show up and wrap themselves around her and each other.

There is grey creeping into Bonnie's hair, and to the crinkles around her smile. Elena thinks she is the most beautiful thing she's ever seen.

For a brief moment she see Damon and Stefan out of the corner of her eye, her heart lurches for a moment, but she squashes it. She's earned that for herself.

This is her path that she chose. The freedom is dizzying.

Caroline, Bonnie, and Elena spend the evening laughing and swapping stories until the sun comes up,wine bottle scattered everywhere and old music playing on the radio as they discard their shoes and dance without regard. Their moves are fearless and carefree, each limb filled with a lifetime.

Elena wakes to find her bags packed and Caroline standing at the end of her bed. “I am the captain of your fun-voyage and we are going to Vegas.”

“I’ve been to Vegas.” Elena smirks, elbowing Bonnie awake.

“Fine, then, somewhere new.” Caroline sticks out her tongue. "How about a Roman Holiday?"

"Bonnie?" Elena turns.

"Not this time." Bonnie curls herself into her friends her skin feels like paper under their touch. "But bring me something back."

"Always," they say in unison.

~~~~

She sees Damon across a crowded bar in Rome, and she tells Caroline out of earshot, “I’ve always wanted to see Morocco in the springtime.”

“I hear Greece is lovely too.”Caroline giggles as Damon fades away.

“There is always next year, or decade.”

"You and me, right?"

"Baby we were born to run." They fall into each with laughter on their voices and blood on their teeth.

~~~~

They are holding hands under the stars in Cairo on a blanket on a roof in some small hotel they found at the edge of nowhere in the city. It smells like spices and life as the two cling to each other.

“I’m sorry,” Elena says suddenly.

“For what?” Caroline looks at her.

“For how I treated you over Damon.” She shrugs slightly.

“I’m sorry I didn’t help you learn to vampire in the beginning. Those two were idiots.” She sighs. “Water under the bridge right?”

“As long as the bridge doesn’t kill me.”

“You know that isn’t funny.”

~~~~

Bonnie Bennettpasses away a week shy of her 93rdbirthday. Her daughter gives her a beautiful eulogy of a life well lived, a woman who helped and saved so many. A brilliant mind, a giver, a fighter, and an inspiration. She can’t place the two women who stand in the back, dark sunglasses, whose bodies shake in grief, but she swears she has seen them before.

~~~~

They stand in the shade, and watch as Bonnie descends into her final resting place. The sun is shining as warm and loving as Bonnie’s smile.

Elena turns to Caroline, “how does Prague sound?”

“Salem first, I want to see where the Bennett started, and Bonnie wanted us to burn the spell book there.”

"Thought she would have wanted her daughter-"

"Not with these secrets."

Elena nods touching the pages. One pricks her finger. "These are the ones worth burning,"she says as the blood drop forms on her finger.

~~~

Of course they run into the Original vampires while they dispose of Bonnie's grimoire, locking away the secrets for what they hope is ever. Klaus rages at the knowledge gone, Caroline trying to temper him. Elijah searches Elena with a gaze. "Hello, there." He smiles. "This" -- he gestures not at her clothing, but at her -- "looks good on you."

"Thank you, Elijah." She smiles warmly and grasps his hand, a lingering promise between them.

"How is mortality treating Rebekah?"

"She passed away in the spring." Elijah replied.

"I am sorry for your loss."

"I am not. Rebekahwas happier than I had ever seen her. She was at peace and the Mikaelson bloodline lives on, a human strand of it at least." He brushes an errant piece of hair out of her face. "The ones we love always leave us."

Elena looks over at Caroline as she fusses over Klaus. "Not always," Elena replies, the smile reaching her eyes, "sometimes they find us again."

~~~~

Neither of them are surprised when stories start popping up on the internet about a serial killer that rips apart his victims and then neatly places them back together. Caroline, ever the care taker, disappears for a few years, but like always Elena knows she'll run into her friend somewhere ever after.

They have an eternity after all. 

**Author's Note:**

> Title taken from:  
> Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening  
> BY ROBERT FROST
> 
> The moment I heard Nina was leaving this popped into my head. I want nothing more than all three girls to ride off into the sunset together in a great car and find a land of bottomless mimosas. This, in the meantime, will have to do.
> 
> Thank you to my beta, Kaji. And Cassie, Katie, Jesse, Natalie, and Rachel who said I should.<3


End file.
